"Didn't contact anyone, barely left his room." What is known about the Belarusian who disappeared in Spain
A friend of the disappeared Henadz Smaliak told Radio Svaboda about his condition recently and versions of what might have happened to him.
Belarusian Henadz Smaliak disappeared in Spain on June 19. He has not been in contact with family and friends for two weeks. Filing a police report proved difficult, as the disappeared person has no relatives in the country, and he faces persecution in his homeland.
Henadz's ex-wife, friend, and project partner Marta (name changed) told what is known at this moment.
"We realized quite late that he was missing," notes the interlocutor.
In recent weeks, Henadz lived in Sabadell near Barcelona, in a house similar to a squat, together with other people. Marta is in another country, outside the EU. She said that she last spoke with Henadz at the end of May.
In early June, he stopped responding to her messages and calls. But the girl wasn't particularly worried, as this had happened before. So she waited for her friend to get in touch. Then Marta learned from acquaintances with whom Henadz lived that he was fine, but "not in a good mood".
"He was not in a very good emotional state. He was in a strong depressive episode. For the last month, he didn't contact anyone, barely left his room, as the people he lived with told me. He ate, slept, smoked cigarettes, and that was it. He didn't even go to the store. He didn't talk much with his flatmates," Marta says about Henadz's condition recently.
However, after some time, Henadz's mother became worried, as her son also stopped responding, and she wrote about it to Marta.
Finally, on June 27, she found out from acquaintances with whom Henadz lived that he had not returned home for more than a week. Smaliak was last seen in the city park on June 19. However, no one immediately raised the alarm, thinking he might have gone somewhere.
"But this is impossible, because his phone has been turned off all this time. I know Hena — he wouldn't get far without navigation, especially since he's not a local. Where can a person go without a phone and money?" reflects the interlocutor.
"Perhaps he is wandering somewhere"
Marta names the probable cause of Henadz's disappearance as the deterioration of his mental state and the fact that he somehow stopped taking the necessary medications that had helped him for many years. In her opinion, he might have gone for a walk in the forest and got lost without a phone, especially given his worsened mental state.
"Perhaps he is wandering somewhere derealized (derealization — a state in which a person perceives the surrounding world as artificial, unreal, distant, or as if "from a dream"; a protective mechanism of the psyche that often arises as a reaction to severe stress, anxiety, emotional burnout, or fatigue). Or he simply ran away from people," suggests Henadz's friend.
Marta hardly considers the option that Henadz "just went somewhere to hang out". She draws attention to such a detail: money was transferred to Henadz, but he didn't go and pick it up.
"That's also strange. How can a person in emigration not need money?" Marta wonders.
A similar situation happened earlier this spring, she says. At that time, Henadz didn't respond to Marta's messages for about a month. But in spring, he didn't break contact with his family and didn't physically disappear, unlike this time.
This February, Henadz Smaliak gave an interview to Most Media, where he said that he had used drugs in emigration but then stopped. As far as Marta knows, recently he hasn't returned to drug use and "didn't even drink beer".
Marta says that she and Henadz discussed the topic of suicide. Her friend was rather negative about it.
"He believed that suicide is a bit selfish towards the family. But he highly praised euthanasia, believing that euthanasia is great, you warned all your relatives. Suicidal thoughts sometimes crossed his mind, but I didn't see any intentions. It was more within the framework of "what if" reflections. Why disappear then? You could at least make sure you're found," shares the interlocutor.
Police Report
Friends of Henadz Smaliak tried to file a missing person report with the police. However, it was difficult to do. Only close relatives can file a missing person report. None of them live in Spain and cannot go there yet. Another option offered by the Sabadell city police was for relatives in Belarus to go to a Belarusian police department and file a missing person report there, Marta recounts.
"However, for me, this sounds ridiculous, because I imagine the reaction of Belarusian cops who, it seems to me, would even rejoice: "one less fighter". If he hadn't been a citizen of Belarus, perhaps this scheme would have worked. But in our situation with legal default, it doesn't work at all. Through acquaintances, they managed to file a report in Barcelona. They managed to arrange with a specific policeman, and he accepted the report," says the girl.
On Wednesday, July 1, it became known that the police in Spain will still not search for the Belarusian without a statement from relatives filed with the Belarusian police.
According to his friend, there was no criminal case against Henadz Smaliak in Belarus. But, in her opinion, he faced persecution in his homeland because Henadz came from "anarchist circles," helped homeless people restore documents, relocate to villages, was involved in the "Food Not Bombs" project where volunteers fed the homeless, and he could also have been imprisoned in Belarus for his activities in emigration. Together, they worked on the media project Not today, not yesterday, not tomorrow.
Friends of the disappeared person want to contact volunteer organizations that help search for people in Spain. This is a bureaucratic process, so it's not very fast.
Help for the Homeless and Mentally Ill
Henadz is 36 years old. In Minsk, he worked as an orderly at Psychoneurological Boarding House No. 3. Additionally, he volunteered there, organized musical performances for the residents of the boarding house, and conducted art therapy.
As Henadz himself previously told Most Media, he implemented things that had not been in the institution before: trips to the city, excursions, free access to water, televisions in the wards, the opportunity for volunteers to visit these people. When, according to him, "people began to come alive," the new head of the boarding house abolished the innovations, and Smaliak resigned with a scandal.
After leaving Belarus, Henadz lived in Ukraine, Poland, Germany, and Spain. Abroad, he worked as a journalist for various publications and even received a journalism award for a text about migrants on the Belarusian-Polish border.
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